


Denting the Wheel

by Ivy_in_the_Garden



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Ableist Language, Atlas is not a good person, Burial at Sea, Canon-Typical Violence, Elizabeth Comstock Deserved Better, Fix-It, Gen, I do not accept the ending of Burial at Sea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:47:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23303401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivy_in_the_Garden/pseuds/Ivy_in_the_Garden
Summary: A fix-it to the end of Burial at Sea.
Kudos: 16





	Denting the Wheel

The radio whirls and crackles. _If you don't draw first–_

"You don't get to draw at all," Elizabeth finishes. She glances up from the polished revolver, '90 stamped into its handle, squirreled away in Suchong's desk. "He'll make a mistake," she says, trying to reassure herself against the damp cold and the aching, throbbing hole in her head. The blood has already dried in stiff channels across her face that crack unpleasantly when she speaks. God, how tired she is. She could just slump here in this ruin, and sleep for a thousand years. But her work isn't done, and it will never be done, so long as Sally is still alive.

She has to set this to right.

_He won't make a mistake, Elizabeth. You've seen this._

Elizabeth wills her sore legs to work. She doesn't want to think about what might have happened when she was unconscious. No, better to focus on anything else. Despite her care, cold ocean water splashes up into her heels and torn stockings. She grimaces, suddenly missing her boots. There is nothing more miserable than the bottom of the ocean, she thinks. None of the bright light of Columbia, only an alien damp and the steely ant-tunnels of a madman. 

The revolver is heavy in her hand, and yet, she knows that this does not even begin to level the playing field. Atlas could snap her neck with his bare hands. And in that moment, she's acutely aware of her smallness, her weakness. He has five men; she has a voice in her head. 

Lamb to the slaughter, a part of her mind unhelpfully fills in. 

"I won't be anyone's lamb," she replies through the metallic ache of blood in her mouth. 

* * *

"Hey sister, over here!" Atlas waits there, backlit by the sweeping ocean. One man imprisons Sally, while another two watch her.

Elizabeth's chest tightens. This is it. This is where she lives or dies. All the lines converge on this point, and just as easily, they split. _She's dead on the floor, vacant-eyed, the head of Sally's doll rolling beside her._ Elizabeth closes her eyes against this vision. She knows. She knows what will happen to her. Always _to_ her; why can't she break free of that, of being subject to the wills around her?

Time is an ocean, not a river, but even oceans have currents. 

The room tenses as she walks through. It's the revolver. It's barely visible in the filtered light, but nothing gets past Atlas.

"You got it?" he calls out, cocky. 

"Give me the girl first," Elizabeth demands, fixing her gaze on Altas. "You told me not to put my faith in strange men. Remember?" Her voice is cold and hard, nothing like that amorphous fear bubbling inside her.

Two more men flank them.

 _Elizabeth_ , Booker warns. 

"Oh, sister," Atlas begins, chuckling and shaking his head. 

_Elizabeth, behind you!_

She moves swiftly, turning on her heel and shoots a man through the jaw. It comes undone in a burst of splintered bone and blood, but she has no time to register this. She ducks behind one of the broken Gatherer's Garden machines, panting in the pink glow. 

"That crazy bitch!" Atlas yells, his Irish accent slipping. "Told you she was a loose cannon."

_Elizabeth!_

Elizabeth shifts out of hiding to shoot at another one of Atlas's goons coming towards her. Her bullet lodges in his shoulder, but the next one finds his eye. 

_You're learning._

She ducks down, as a series of bullets sing past her. But before she can catch her breath, two men loom above her. Her mind goes blank as her finger pulls back the trigger in quick succession. Her wrists ache from the kickback, and she suppresses a sob. How many was that? How many bullets did she still have left?

 _Four down, two bullets left_ , Booker fills in. _Reload the gun_. 

Shaking, she tries to push in the cartridges, but they fall around her with little clinks. _I'm scared, Booker._

"No, no, no!" Atlas barks. "Get out here, or we'll kill the girl. Cut her little throat right up."

Reluctantly, Elizabeth rises to her feet. She feels disembodied now, as she leaves her cover. ( _Lamb to the_ _slaughter_.)

"You're a right little firecracker, aren't you?" Atlas says, with no endearment in his voice. "Now come here, give me the Ace, and I'll bring you the girl in a silk ribbon. Try that stunt again, and I'll break her pretty little neck in front of you. Understand?" His hand tightens around Sally's throat, as she squirms, her luminescent eyes large and uncomprehending.

Elizabeth can't find her words now. The discarded wrench beside Atlas haunts her for some reason.

"Understand?" Atlas repeats, threateningly. 

"I do," she manages, and in that moment, she does. 

The man, the final man, lunges for her, and she shoots him through the throat, cleanly, feeling Booker's hand lifting her own in a swift movement. 

"You little whore!" Atlas screams, throwing aside Sally and seizing Elizabeth's wrists. He nearly breaks them, as he applies enough coarse pressure to make her drop the gun. "Fuck, I should have just killed you back there for all the trouble you've brought!"

She spits in his face in response, and in the moment that his disgust and surprise lends her, she knees him in the groin. He screams and hunches over in pain. 

"Get your hands off me!" she screams back.

She tears free of him, reeling backwards on her unsteady legs, and seizes the wrench. Its weight is familiar as she brings it down on his head. But Atlas doesn't go down as expected. Horrified, she swings it again at him, more desperate now, but he blindly grabs at her, just barely missing.

Her heels knock against the revolver.

_Now!_

She reaches for the gun, as he stumbles towards her, and blows his brains out at close range. He jerks and twitches in his death-throes, as she watches, still clutching the revolver.

Then, a movement behind some rubble – Sally. Sally, with her wide eyes and little shudders of fear.

Elizabeth's shoulders droop from exhaustion. Regret and relief fill her all at once. 

"Sally," she breathes. "Oh Sally, I never should have left you."

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted Atlas to get what he deserves. That's it. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!! Comments are loved.


End file.
